The Bed I Lie Upon
by lickerdysplit
Summary: Sam deflects a psychiatrist's questions. Dean is surprised by a friendly cop. Something is starting fires all over Phoenix...and the FBI has realised the boys are not as dead as they should be. Sequel to Mistakes and Monsters, set during season 4.
1. A Deep Silence

**A deep silence**.

Agent Weiss looked up at Agent Lee.

"He's dead?" Her face was pale.

Lee nodded.

Weiss dropped her head into her hand. "Jesus. Oh."

Lee sat down jerkily. He ran his hand through his hair.

"I can't believe Vic would be that careless," Lee said. "I think something's not right."

Weiss squinted at him.

"What about the Winchesters? Have they been found?"

Lee shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "ASAC says they're probably dead."

"What?!" Weiss sat bolt upright. "Probably dead? What good is that?"

Lee tapped out a beat on the surface of the desk.

"The crash has made it hard to identify the bodies. There's some difficulty, without dental records…says the ASAC." Lee's expression was hard to read.

Weiss stared at him.

"You don't think they're dead," she said. It wasn't a question.

Lee looked back at her without saying anything.

Weiss raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Has he called a press conference yet?"

"Called and held," Lee nodded. "So the Winchesters are officially dead."

They sat there in silence for a while.

"That doesn't mean to say that the case is closed, though," Weiss said slowly.

Lee tipped his head to one side. "How's that?"

Weiss chewed on her lower lip.

"Officially dead. Dean was officially dead before, and he turned out not to be. It actually made him cockier, I think. Easier to find."

Lee thought about this.

"If they think we think they're dead…they'll be less careful," he said. "Is that what you mean?"

Weiss nodded.

"I guess that's what the ASAC was thinking," she said.

Lee grinned widely. "Not just a suit, after all."

"Glory be," Weiss said, "a suit with a brain in his head." She let out a long breath.

"He's called a general briefing," Lee told her. "We'll have more of an idea then."

*******************************************************************************************

The conference room was not large, and was only designed to hold about twenty people. It was packed full of agents. Weiss and Lee had never been in here before.

"This is a bigwig room," Lee said under his breath. "What are we doing in here for a general briefing?"

"It's the ASAC with brains," Weiss replied.

"Times they are a-changing?" Lee asked.

Weiss shrugged in response.

"Have you heard anything about him?" Lee craned his neck subtly for a better look.

"He was a cop in Atlanta until last year," Weiss whispered. "He was headhunted."

Lee looked at their new ASAC. He was tall and broad, and took up a lot of space. Weiss and Lee had a good vantage point from their seats at the back of the room, and Lee could see that most of the people in the room were staring at Agent Patten, and judging from the chatter in the room, talking about him too.

"Who's the agent with him?" Lee asked quietly. "I've never seen her before."

Looking at the woman in question, Weiss shook her head. "No idea."

At the front of the room, Patten stood up. The buzz of conversation died away.

"Good morning, everyone," Patten said. "My name is Joe Patten, I am your new ASAC, and I have been transferred here to head up the investigation into the tragic events in Montana two days ago. We can now confirm that twelve people died there, and as you may or may not know, three of those people were agents with this Bureau. AD Groves and Agents Reid and Hendrickson have been positively identified."

He let this news sink in, for the benefit of those who hadn't already heard.

"We held a press conference this morning in which we confirmed these details for the media. In that press conference, we also said that we had recovered the bodies of Sam and Dean Winchester. This is not true. We are certain that the Winchesters are still alive. You are here today because you are members of a new task force, created specifically to find the Winchesters and bring them to justice."

Lee flicked a glance sideways at Weiss, without moving his head. Weiss blinked at him, not taking her eyes off Patten.

Patten continued, "These men have killed three members of our Bureau. They have killed men, women and children in seven states. They have now escalated to mass murder. They are not going to stop. We need to stop them. Let's get to it."

Most of the agents stood up and filed out of the room, pausing to talk to Patten on the way out. Weiss and Lee stayed where they were. The female agent who had been sitting next to Patten remained seated as well, reading intently from a file on the table in front of her.

"Doesn't waste words, does he?" Weiss commented quietly.

"A new breed, indeed," said Lee.

The room was clear of everyone except Lee, Weiss, Patten and the agent at the front of the room. Patten clicked the door shut and turned to the two profilers.

"Thank you for waiting," he said. "I know you have a lot to do today."

"It's not a problem," Lee told him, standing up. The two men shook hands.

"Good to meet you, Agent Lee. Agent Weiss."

Weiss stood up and shook hands. "Nice briefing," she said.

Patten smiled. "I don't like long meetings. Never have. Don't think they have a place in police work."

Lee said, "We'll try to be brief too."

The three of them walked up to the table at the top of the room. The agent who had been reading all this time finally looked up from her papers.

"Sorry," she said. "Absorbing stuff."

"Agents Weiss, Lee, this is Agent Michelle Rosen."

There was more shaking of hands and they all sat down, two to a side, Patten and Rosen opposite Weiss and Lee.

Agent Rosen spread out her papers on the table.

"I've been reading the transcripts of the interviews you had with them in Illinois."

Lee tilted his head. Weiss raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"We had them," Rosen said. "Why in God's name did the AD take them on a field trip?"

Weiss chuckled abruptly.

Lee said, "I guess he thought it was the only way to get the children back safely."

Rosen looked at him keenly. "But you all stated that you thought it was a…'situation with too many risk factors'."

"Yes."

"He disregarded your opinions."

"Yes."

Rosen paused for a few seconds. "What an ass."

"Michelle," Patten said, "we can't really make judgements about a situation we weren't involved in." He sounded serious, but winked at them as he said it.

Lee felt Weiss' eyes on him.

"Sir," Lee said, "Agent Rosen is right. We had them. We could have prevented all of this."

"You did everything that you could, Agent Lee. And you, Agent Weiss. With Agents Reidy and Hendrickson, and Chief Byrne, you saved the lives of two children. You apprehended the Winchesters. You extracted confessions from them. You gathered more information about them than anyone else ever has. You did your job. You did more than was asked of you. And you're still doing it. The mistake was the AD's. That's clear from the record. You two are exemplary agents. I would count myself lucky to have you on this team."

Lee felt himself going red.

"Uh. Thank you, sir."

Weiss nodded her agreement, also blushing.

"Don't mention it. And that's enough of the 'sir'. Joe is my name." Patten loosened his tie. "Now, Michelle. Any questions?"

Rosen looked again at the documents in front of her.

"When the brothers were put together, in one room, Sam mentioned other places…here we are…" She pointed at a highlighted section of text.

Lee and Weiss leaned in and read.

SW: You could tell them about St Louis.

DW: Nope.

SW: You could tell them about Atlanta.

DW: No.

They finished reading and looked at the man in charge.

Patten said, "I was a cop in Atlanta before I joined the Bureau."

"Oh?" Weiss said.

"We had a set of murders there, two years ago. Four women were murdered in their own homes. It was…bad." He looked down at the table. "No leads. Nothing. This mention, by Sam Winchester, of Atlanta, directly after St Louis, makes me think maybe the Winchesters were in my city. I would like to ask them about it."

There was a brief pause.

"Fair enough," Weiss said.

"So. What can we do for you, s- Joe?"

Patten smiled at the self-correction. "I would like an idea of what they might do next. Now that they're dead."

Weiss leaned back in her chair.

"We think that they'll relax," she said.

Lee chimed in, "They would have gone underground, like they did after the murders in Wisconsin, but, as you say, now that they're dead, things are different."

"They'll definitely be more casual about contact with the police. If we're lucky, they'll start feeling confident enough to venture back into bigger towns and cities, where, of course, there's more chance one of our agents will spot them." Weiss reached for one of the mug shots among the papers on the table and examined it. "They won't bother to change their appearances."

"They won't get rid of the car," Lee added. "That will help us a lot."

"What are the chances of them killing again before we can find them?" Rosen's voice was calm and steady, but she blinked nervously.

The profilers looked at each other.

"That bad, huh?" Patten's face was grave.

Lee looked directly at his new boss.

"Well, there are two ways it could go, really. It might be that the massacre has sated them, and it might be a long time before they feel the urge to kill anybody again."

"Or," Weiss said, "it might be that the mass killing has struck a chord with them. This is the first time that they've done anything like this. They might have liked it so much that they'll want to do it again pretty soon."

"And by soon, we mean, two months or so." Lee looked at Rosen, who was making notes.

"They don't have a consistent pattern. In Illinois, they did something completely new, and then in Montana, something completely new again. They could surprise us all a third time." Weiss spread her hands in an apologetic gesture.

"We've never worked on a case like this, where the suspects change their MO so rapidly. They're new."

Patten tilted his head to one side, just as Lee had done earlier.

"Can we apprehend them alive?"

Weiss blew some hair out of her eyes and said, "Maybe, if we get them on a good day. In Illinois, we got them on a good day."

"Can we apprehend them without loss of life?"

Weiss looked at Lee. She knew they were both thinking about Reid, and the way he looked when they found him in the shack in the woods.

"If we're lucky." Weiss met Patten's eyes. "If they have no idea we're coming."

"Maybe if they're asleep," Lee said.

There was a deep silence.

"I want them," Patten said, "but not at the cost of more lives."

"Well, we've made a good start. They don't know we're looking for them."

Patten looked at Lee and Weiss in turn.

"I would like your help on this full-time, but I'll understand if you don't want it."

The profilers didn't even look at each other.

"We want them," Lee said.

"We'll help," Weiss nodded.


	2. Policy

Policy

Sam and Dean were having trouble.

"What do you mean, there's no room?"

The motel clerk cleared his throat in agitation. Dean was staring at him, hard.

"Um. We have no free rooms, sir."

Dean stared at him some more.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"The sign outside says 'vacancies'," Sam pointed out.

The clerk looked out of the window at the sign, then back at the brothers.

"Uh. I forgot to turn it off. We're full."

"There's a maid over there cleaning a room out."

The clerk opened his mouth and shut it again.

"Yes. Yes, there is."

Sam frowned in annoyance. "So the room is empty?"

The clerk nodded minutely, trying to avoid Dean's eyes.

"So can we have a room?"

"Um. No."

Sam threw his hands up in confusion.

"Why not?"

The clerk shuffled his feet.

"We have a policy of not renting rooms to couples of the same gender," he said finally.

"You…have a policy?" Dean asked quietly.

The clerk looked at Sam.

"I'm sorry. I'd lose my job."

Sam gestured at Dean, then himself.

"We're brothers," he said, "not a couple."

The clerk was shaking his head. "I'm sorry, I can't rent you a room."

"We're not a couple!" Sam's voice was getting louder.

"Sam, forget it," Dean said, still eyeballing the clerk.

Sam wasn't prepared to leave it there, though.

"What's your name?" Sam asked the clerk.

"Paul," said the clerk.

"Look, Paul, I'm not…we're brothers. Really."

Paul looked at them for a moment.

"You don't look like brothers."

"But we do look like a couple? That's what you're saying?"

Paul looked around for a way out of the conversation.

"Look. I'm really sorry. But I can't rent you a room; I would get fired. And you would get kicked out of the room, and you wouldn't get a refund."

Sam gave up and walked out of the office without another word.

Dean gave Paul the clerk one last eyeball.

"A policy," he said in disgust, and followed Sam out to the parking lot.

Outside in the sunshine, Sam was just about fit to burst.

"What kind of place is this?" he asked the world at large.

Dean kept his mouth shut.

"Stupid hick town," Sam went on. "Dumb-ass rules for no good reason, what kind of…" He tailed off when he saw Dean's face.

"What?"

Dean wiped his hand over his mouth. "Nothing."

"Are you laughing at me?"

Dean thought about it.

"Yeah."

"Dean-"

"You know what, Sam? It doesn't matter, okay? We're not going to stay here, so what. We'll find somewhere else."

"Another motel?"

"Sure, why not?"

Sam flung his arms wide. "We're not exactly spoilt for choice out here, Dean."

Dean looked around. Sam had a point.

"You have a point," he conceded.

They stood there for a while, faces to the warm sun, thinking.

"You hungry?" Dean asked, presently.

"Yeah."

They started back up the road to the main part of town.

"What is this place called, anyway?"

"Butt-hole?" Dean guessed.

Sam sniggered despite himself.

They carried on walking, kicking up a fair amount of dust as they went.

"Do we really look like a couple?"

"Apparently."

They walked on in their dust cloud.

"What's up with that?" Sam asked.

Dean shrugged.

"It's probably your hair," he said.

"What?"

"I said, it's probably – "

"Yeah, I heard you!" Sam said crossly. "What do you mean, it's my hair?"

"Nothing, never mind."

"How can it be my hair?"

Dean said nothing at all.

"Ass," Sam said.

Dean smiled to himself.

"It's probably your jacket," Sam went on.

"Hey! Leave the jacket out of this!"

"Who wears leather nowadays? No one."

Dean bristled. "Who says 'nowadays', nowadays?"

They managed another three steps before they started laughing, and they laughed all the rest of the way back to town.

They headed straight for the diner they had seen earlier. The town had woken up now and there were a number of people on the street. As they proceeded through the town, they drew a lot of stares.

"Are they staring at your hair or my jacket?" Dean murmured.

Sam was feeling a little uneasy.

"I don't like this, Dean."

"Ah, calm down. What's going to happen?"

Sam stopped in his tracks. "Seriously? Seriously? If that's not tempting fate…"

Dean wheeled around and said, "Come on, dude, I need some breakfast. We can worry about fate getting us when I've had some pancakes."

When they got to the diner, they saw that it was clean and cheerful, and there was a pleasant looking middle-aged lady behind the counter. Sam and Dean pushed open the door and found an empty booth. Dean fished a menu out of the stand and found the pancakes. Opposite him, Sam caught the waitress' eye.

"Mornin', boys," she said. Sam read her nametag; it said 'Marlene'.

"Morning," Sam replied brightly.

"Coffee?"

Marlene turned over the coffee cups that were already on the table and filled them up.

"Get you any breakfast?"

"Pancakes, please. Lots of pancakes." Dean stuck the menu back in the stand.

Marlene bustled away, and within a few short minutes was back with two huge stacks of pancakes, plus syrup.

Dean settled back in the booth seat and examined his plate with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Ah, pancakes," he said. "The king of breakfast foods." He set to work.

Sam sipped at his coffee and was just about to start on his pancakes when he felt someone looking at him. He set his cup down and twisted subtly in his seat. He saw the cops in the booth in the corner of the diner. One of them was looking directly at him. The other one was writing something down in his notebook.

Sam had to force himself to turn back around slowly.

"Dean," he whispered. "Cops."

Dean looked up and past Sam to where the cops were, munching all the while.

"They're not arresting us," he said. "Ignore them. Besides, we're dead."

Sam blinked rapidly.

"They're giving us the eyeball," he hissed, "like everyone else in this town. And we might be dead, but our fingerprints are still in the system, so I think we should avoid getting arrested for no good reason in Hickville, okay?"

Dean rolled his eyes at this, but didn't disagree.

"We'd better finish eating," Dean said, between mouthfuls. "Look weird if we don't."

Sam saw the sense in this, so he started to eat his pancakes.

He got about three pancakes in before the cops came over.

"Good morning, gentlemen."

Sam looked up. Both the cops were standing there, one by each seat, blocking both Sam and Dean into the booth.

The cop nearest Sam said, "Are you vacationing here?"

Sam shook his head. "Just passing through."

"Where are you headed?"

"Phoenix."

The cop scratched his nose.

"If you're passing through, why were you up at the motel this morning?"

Man, Sam thought.

"Our car needed an oil change, some other stuff. We've been driving a while."

Dean added, "The car needed a rest. So did we."

The cop bobbed his head noncommittally. "You didn't get any rooms up there?"

"Ah, no." Sam looked at Dean, still working his way down the stack of pancakes.

"Why's that?" The cop next to Sam was asking all the questions. The cop near Dean wasn't talking. Just watching.

"The clerk didn't give us a room."

"Why's that?"

No way around it, Sam thought. He cleared his throat.

"He thought we were a couple."

The cop nodded.

"They do have a policy."

Sam said nothing. Dean stopped eating.

Sam braced himself, thinking, don't do something stupid, Dean…and then found himself doing something that, on balance, was really pretty dumb.

*

Patten looked at the map appraisingly, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He felt the heat of Michelle's gaze in the back of his neck.

"Are we sure about this?" Patten asked, without taking his eyes off the map.

"Do you want a percentage?"

He turned around and nodded once.

"Ninety per cent." Michelle swung slightly in her chair, shoes discarded under the desk. Her feet were bare and didn't touch the floor. Patten tried not to look at them. He shifted his attention to Agent Weiss instead.

"Would they recognise you, Amanda?" Patten asked.

Weiss leaned on the edge of her desk. "Probably not. They only saw me once, during the arrest, for about thirty seconds. It was dark. They were distracted. And I would be in disguise anyway."

"And you, Dan? Would they recognise you?"

"Yes," Agent Lee said, muffled somewhat by the bagel he was eating. "At least, Sam would. And they tend not to go for guys, as such."

Patten knew this to be true. He knew Lee wouldn't work as bait anymore than he himself would. He knew it was unreasonable of him to think that Michelle would be less good at the job than he would. He knew that both she and Amanda were stellar field agents and were more than capable of staying safe during an op like this. Still…he was worried.

"You're worried." Weiss looked at him steadily. Michelle looked at Weiss.

"Yes."

"Smart," Weiss said.

"We just don't know, do we? We don't really know what they'll do."

Lee finished his bagel and wiped his hands on a paper napkin. "No. But we can make an educated guess based on the things that we do know." He threw the napkin in the trash and glanced at Michelle.

Rosen took this as her cue. "We do know that they are in Arizona. We know that they said they were heading to Phoenix, and they had no reason to lie. We know it's been two months since the massacre, and that means they're about ready to do it again." She took a breath. "It's a risk, Joe. But us not risking it could cost lives. You know that. You're the one who said it in the first place. Have you changed your mind?"

Patten shook his head slowly.

"Then what's going on?"

Patten looked down at his hands. "The last time these guys were trapped, they destroyed a building and killed twelve people to get away. Twelve people. The escalation worries me. If they realise that you are FBI…I am worried about what'll happen."

Rosen smiled gently. "Good," she said, still smiling. "Me too."

Patten avoided looking directly at her. "I'd feel happier if I was doing it myself, I guess that's what it is."

Unseen by either Patten or Rosen, the profilers exchanged a meaningful glance, hiding smiles of their own


	3. Plausible

**Plausible.**

Sam woke up screaming, for the first time in six months. He was soaked in sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead, clothes sticking to him all over. The headache was the only thing he noticed for a while, but eventually he realised that he was tied to the bed.

He opened his eyes a crack.

There was a man sitting in a chair nearby, reading a book. There was a clipboard filled with notes lying disregarded nearby.

Sam looked harder at the man. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and seemed relatively unlike a shrink. But Sam knew better. He'd been screaming quite loudly, he knew, and yet the man had paid him no attention. Only shrinks did things like that.

The man set his book down and turned his head to look at Sam. He was young. Crap, Sam thought.

"Good morning," the man said.

"Hello," Sam said slowly, and waited to see what would happen next.

The man pointed to his name badge. "I am Dr Burton. Hence the badge. It says here," he gestured towards the discarded clipboard, "that you had no ID of any kind on you when you were brought in. So, embarrassingly, I have to ask you what your name is. This is not a lame shrink test of cognitive function."

Sam blinked. "My name's Mark," he said.

"Okay. Mark. A last name would be good, too."

Sam thought fast and said, "Campbell."

"Okay," Burton said, picking up the clipboard and giving it a cursory glance. "Here come the lame cognitive tests. The year is…"

"2008," Sam said.

"The month is…"

"July," Sam said.

"The date is…"

Sam had no clue. "I have no clue," he said.

Burton smiled. "Me neither," he said in reply. "I'm lucky I don't have to pass these kinds of tests."

Sam smiled despite himself.

Burton looked down at the clipboard. Sam had the impression that he wasn't really reading anything. This was a bad sign.

"Can you tell me how you got here?" Burton asked casually.

"Uh. Not…really." Sam tested his restraints, oh so carefully.

"Would you tell me what you do remember?"

Sam bunched his fists tighter and thought about what he could say. Burton just waited, hands resting on his knees.

"I was kinda wasted, and…I guess I got…arrested?" This sounded like a plausible lie. Sam was pleased with it. It would explain any odd things that he might have said. It didn't quite explain the screaming nightmares, but Sam figured you couldn't have everything.

Burton said nothing. Just sat there, hands open, waiting.

Sam started to think maybe he had made a mistake.

The shrink tilted his head up and back, and examined the ceiling. "You know what's interesting? You haven't asked why you're in restraints."

Sam pressed his lips together firmly to stop himself from swearing.

"Most people, that's their first question."

"Kinda late to ask it now, right?"

Burton nodded. "So. You were drinking?"

"Yeah."

Burton shook his head gently. "No. Your blood alcohol is zero. Official."

Man, thought Sam. I cannot catch a break.

"Where do you live?"

This caught Sam unawares.

"Uh. Nowhere, really," he said honestly.

Burton made a note on the clipboard. "You're homeless?"

"Uh, no, not like that. I just…move around a lot?" Sam winced at this answer.

The shrink paused for a few seconds, examining Sam's face.

"Let's try again," he said, not unkindly, "how did you get here?"

Sam decided to try to tell him the truth – or most of it.

"I don't remember actually getting here. I think I was…I had kind of a bad dream, and it…I scared somebody, this lady. And she called the cops, I remember that," Sam sighed, "and then I don't know. Then I was here."

Burton's eyes were hard to read.

Sam started to worry. "Is she all right? That woman?"

"Why would she not be?" The shrink's voice was level.

Shrugging, Sam said, "I think I really freaked her out."

"She's fine," Burton said. "I'm more worried about you."

"Ah. You don't need to be," Sam told him.

The shrink smiled fractionally. "This bad dream you had. Were you having another one, just now?"

Sam nodded without thinking.

"Do you have bad dreams often?"

Stay still, Sam told himself.

"When you have a bad dream, are they always as extreme as the one you had tonight?" The shrink seemed calm to the point of disinterest. Sam knew better.

"Extreme? What do you mean?"

"I mean violent."

"Oh." Sam grinned despite himself. "You're unusual."

Burton's face shifted somehow. "Really? How?"

"You don't shy away from it. That's atypical for a shrink. It's more like…"

Burton slipped into a grin of his own. "More like what? An orthodontist?"

Sam laughed. "More like a cop, I was going to say."

"Hmm." Burton's mouth kept smiling, but the laughter faded from his eyes.

Sam's internal alarm went off. "What?"

"There are some cops who want to talk to you."

Crap, Sam thought. "Oh,' was all he said out loud, but the shrink seemed to get more than that.

"I don't let any law enforcement types see my patients until I'm happy that they are fit for interview."

"Okay," Sam said cautiously.

"Currently, I don't have enough information from you to hold them off."

Sam thought about this rapidly. It could just be a ploy to get information, but probably not. And he definitely didn't want to be talking to any cops right now, not after last night. They'd be sure to print him, and that would cause all kinds of trouble. All he needed was time; time to figure a way out, or for Dean to figure a way in. And Burton was giving it to him on a plate.

All Sam had to do was tell more of the truth, with a few strategic lies.

Easy.

Burton caught Sam's eye and asked, "Have you been in trouble with the police before?"

Sam nodded.

"What happened?"

"I was having a dream, a bad one, and when it finished I was in a lady's house, and she was screaming…"

"Like last night?"

"Yeah."

"Are the dreams always the same?"

"Yeah. It's…I don't know how to…stop it."

The doctor looked down at his clipboard. "Tell me what the dreams are about."

Oh, boy. Sam steeled himself. "I dream that there's a fire. In a house, and there are people trapped inside, and I have to get them out or they're going to die."

"How do you get them out of the house?" Burton checked something off on his pad of paper.

"I carry them."

Burton frowned slightly, Sam thought.

"And that's the dream you had last night?"

Sam nodded. Had he said something wrong?

"Can you remember how you got to the house last night?"

"No," Sam lied.

The doctor put his pad and pencil down on the floor. Sam didn't bother trying to sneak a look.

"Mark," Burton said quietly, "I'm going to ask you some questions, and it's important that you answer honestly, whatever the answer is, okay?"

Sam just looked at him. He didn't have to pretend to be worried.

"Okay, Mark?"

"Okay," Sam said.

"Have you ever harmed an animal deliberately?"

"No."

"Have you ever started a fire deliberately to damage something?"

Sam couldn't say no. He had. Just not this time.

"Yes," he said.

"Have you ever heard voices?"

"N-no." Crap. Lousy lie.

"Have you ever seen something that turned out not to be there?"

"No." That was better. Kind of.

Burton paused. "When you hear voices, do they tell you to do things?"

Sam bristled. "I told you I don't hear voices."

"Why do you set things on fire?"

Oh. "I have to," Sam said bluntly, looking away and up.

"Why do you have to?"

Sam sighed heavily. This was really going to do it. "Different reasons. It depends."

"What does it depend on?"

"The type of thing it is."

"Would you ever set fire to a cat?"

"No!"

"Or a car?"

Sam thought about it. "Uh. No."

"Or a house?"

"No."

The doctor's eyes found Sam's. "Or a person?"

Sam's eyes skittered away from Burton.

"Mark?"

"What?"

"Why set fire to a person?" Burton's tone and manner were unchanged. They might as well have been discussing the weather

Just say it, Sam told himself. Mark isn't real. Nothing you say counts.

"To, uh. To stop them."

"From…?"

"From coming back." Sam looked back at the shrink. He seemed totally unfazed.

"Coming back from where?"

Sam shook his head.

Burton nodded, as if this was what he had expected. He picked up his clipboard from the floor and checked his notes from earlier, but left the pencil where it was.

"You don't have an address in town?"

Sam shook his head again.

"Where have you been staying?"

"Um. Kind of, I'm kind of between places."

Burton paused, almost imperceptibly. "What have you been doing for money?"

'Hustling pool', Sam thought. His lips formed the word 'hustling', but then he changed his mind. Too late. He saw the look on Burton's face, though the doctor hid it quickly.

"Is there anyone we can call for you?"

Sam felt his eyes widen. "Why?"

"I think I'd like you to stay here for a few days. If there's someone who's going to be worried, if you're missing…"

Suppressing a smile, Sam said, "Yeah. Luke."


	4. Chapter 4

Dealings

'Luke' was sprawled on a park bench about three blocks away from the hospital; phone in hand, willing it to ring. He had been there for what felt like days, though Dean knew it had only been a few hours at most, with regular breaks for coffee.

Once he knew Sam had been hauled off by the cops, it was a process of elimination. He hadn't been arrested. He wasn't back at the motel. So, it had to be the hospital. Dean had positioned himself as close to the hospital as he thought was safe, and tried to look busy whenever anyone went by. This hadn't prevented three eager and slightly furtive men asking him for two distinct and distasteful favours. They had disappeared remarkably quickly, once Dean had explained to them that a) he was not in that line of work and b) they were disgusting.

Dean looked up from his phone and snorted. A man in his thirties was walking slowly but purposefully towards him. Customer number four, it seemed.

The man was wearing jeans and a jacket, Dean saw, as he got closer. Oh. Not a customer, Dean realised, when it was too late to move and have it seem natural.

"Evening," the man said, conversationally.

"Evening," Dean replied, manoeuvring his feet into a better starting position. Just in case.

The man stood still, side on, about six feet away. Dean stayed where he was.

"What are you selling?"

Dean tried not to roll his eyes. "Not selling anything."

"Don't bullshit me."

Dean looked sideways at the guy. "Really. Not selling anything."

"Yeah." The guy turned to face Dean for the first time, eyes taking him in. "So, what's in your pockets?"

"Not much," Dean said honestly.

"Show me," said the man.

"Ah, no."

The guy moved his jacket aside to show the gun on his hip and the badge on his belt. He stepped closer to the bench.

"Show me here, or show me at the station." For a cop, he sounded pretty cheerful, Dean thought.

"Okay," Dean said, and turfed out the contents of his pockets, laying them one by one on the bench beside him so the cop could see.

The cop ran his eye over the assorted items. Cash. Gum. Phone. Condoms. He flicked his eyes over Dean again, re-assessing. He looked at Dean's fresh black eye and cut lip, and the bruising underneath it that travelled down his neck.

"Okay. Thank you."

Dean nearly fell off the bench in shock.

"I haven't seen you here before," the cop commented. "My name's Raimi. I work Vice."

"I'm Luke," Dean said easily.

"Nice to meet you," Raimi said. "You can put your things away now. Thanks."

Twice inside a minute, Dean was shocked into silence. He put his stuff back in his pockets.

"You're polite for a cop," Dean eventually got out.

Raimi made a small sound in the back of his throat. "Politeness doesn't cost anything."

"You weren't so polite when you thought I was dealing," Dean pointed out.

Raimi acknowledged this with a wave of his hand, and said, "I won't have drugs here. What happened?" he asked, gesturing minutely at Dean's face.

"Oh." Dean had almost forgotten about that. "Disagreement."

"With a customer?"

Dean was confused for a second, and then he got it. Vice. Oh, right.

"Ah." What was the best thing to say? "Yeah."

The cop looked at him hard. "This customer. Is he going to be making any complaints?"

"Nah." Dean leaned back, giving Raimi a better look at his face and neck. "He did all the work."

Raimi motioned towards the free space on the bench. "Mind if I sit?"

Dean gave him the go-ahead.

The cop sat down in silence. They looked at the view.

Raimi looked at Dean. "Do you have a pimp?"

"No, nope."

"Are you safe?"

Dean looked at Raimi this time. "Yeah." What kind of cop was this?

"Do you know a kid named Mark?"

"Why?"

"He's in some trouble. I thought maybe you'd be a friend of his?"

Dean bared his teeth as he looked in the opposite direction. "Yes."

Raimi nodded. "They'll try to get hold of you. The shrinks. They're good like that. So, if you want to be around to be a friend to him, you need to stay safe. Okay?"

Dean switched his attention back to the cop. "Yeah. Thanks." The phone started to vibrate in Dean's pocket. He stood up painfully and fished the phone out.

"Don't mind me," Raimi said, not moving from the bench.

Dean flipped open the phone. "Mark?"

It was Sam. Dean's face split in a smile of sheer relief. He fixed his eyes on a point in the middle distance and listened hard to his brother. Dean didn't say much, mindful of the fact that the cop was still within earshot, but reluctant to walk away. Cops were always more interested in the things you didn't want to them to hear, in Dean's experience.

Dean finished the call by arranging to visit Sam the next day, and hung up. When he turned round to face Raimi again, the cop was doing a passable impression of not listening.

"Everything okay?" Raimi asked casually.

Dean nodded vaguely.

"He's fine."

The cop looked cautiously at Dean. "Are you?"

Dean kept his face clear of emotion. He gestured at his face and said, "What, this? It's nothing."

"It's not just your face though, is it? I think I saw you in the hospital last week."

"I'm fine, man," Dean told him, thinking rapidly.

Raimi looked at his fingernails. "If you were having a problem with somebody, to the extent that they had put you in hospital, the smart thing to do would be to tell me."

Dean sat down on the bench again. He said nothing.

"I don't know what dealings you've had with cops before, Luke," Raimi said slowly, "but I'm not here to make your life harder. I won't push you for details of what happened, but what happened to you was like nothing I've seen before. I wouldn't want that to happen again, to you or to anyone, so if you could tell me anything that would help me stop it from happening again, I would appreciate it."

Raimi placed a card with a phone number on it on the bench between them.

"And whatever you can or can't tell me," he went on, " you can call me if you're in trouble. Okay?"

Dean couldn't speak. He picked up the card and put it in his jeans pocket. He nodded in a off-hand way, looking past the cop, not focusing on anything.

Phoenix was turning out to be a little different than he had expected.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5.

A/N. Thank you to everyone who reviewed this! Sorry this part's taken so long to get up. RL getting in the way, you know how it goes….Shall be quicker next time.

Eyes on the sunlight making its way across the floor, Sam sat patiently on a plastic chair, waiting. He didn't have a watch anymore, but the angle and colour of the light from outside made him think it had to be somewhere near eight in the morning. He guessed the doors would be opened soon.

The time he'd spent in this room had been weirdly peaceful. He had half-expected whoops and noises from the rooms surrounding his; laughter, whatever. He'd heard nothing bar some energetic snoring, which actually helped him drop off to sleep. Dean snored like that. Sam smiled at the thought, and tried to shift his thoughts back to what he had to do today. He looked at the sun on the floor and kept his ears open.

This room was well-lit and cheerful. Clean. The floor he was staring at was a subtle yellow, enhanced by the sun's rays. Not at all what he'd been expecting. The bed was easy to sleep in, the chair he had was decent - if flimsy - and…yeah. He'd had a good night's sleep. In a secure ward. Admittedly, this last part was worrying, and was the reason why he was concentrating so hard.

Sam leaned back gingerly in the plastic chair, not quite trusting it to hold his weight. He couldn't see much of the hallway outside the room from here but that wasn't important, not just yet. He'd tried to catch sight of the security door at the end of the hall earlier, crowding his frame up to the small clear patch near the top of the door to his room. No use. No noise, either, from anywhere. So, he decided he would wait it out in this cheerful plastic room.

He was wearing some equally clean and cheerful clothes that a nurse had brought him. The walk up to this ward had been awkward. They hadn't actually let Sam walk, for one thing. He'd thought this very strange - after all, his legs were fine - but then, thinking about it, he realised the staff probably considered him a risk. For escape, or for violence, or plain non-compliance. They'd given him some mild kind of sedative - Dr Burton had explained what it was and what it would do, but honestly Sam hadn't been listening too closely. He'd had other things on his mind.

This morning the sun had cruised steadily over the pale floor until it reached Sam's bare feet. Quietness like this was rare in his life; sure, maybe the fact that he was under a psych hold was problematic, but the absence of noise was relaxing. Mostly. Sam being Sam, he couldn't just sit there and do nothing. No. Sam had been preparing himself.

When the metallic rattle came from outside the room, Sam tapped his heels gently against the legs of the chair, counting slowly under his breath. Eyes on the floor, demeanour non-threatening, spine relaxed, he waited. The sound of footsteps approaching the room. He kept counting.

The footsteps stopped. Fifteen seconds, Sam thought.

Then, soft and polite, a knock on the door. Sam jumped. He definitely hadn't anticipated that. The door clicked and swung open.

"Hello, Mark," said a familiar voice.

"Hi," Sam said economically.

"Ready for some breakfast?" Dr Burton stepped into the room and held the door ajar behind him.

"Oh." That's great, Sam thought, monosyllabic _and _nuts. Try harder.

"You don't need to leave the room if you don't want."

"No." Say something else, idiot, Sam told himself. Build a relationship for Christ's sake.

"Um," he managed. "Is - is Luke here?"

Burton smiled. "Visiting hours are after breakfast. So. Feel like eating?"

Sam nodded once, but made no move to stand up. Burton tipped his head fractionally to one side. Sam resisted the urge to look away from the doctor's face, hating the sensation of being examined. Worse in here than it had been in the ER.

"I thought Luke was coming yesterday," Sam tried.

Burton briefly bit his lower lip. "Yes. I'm sorry about that. I should have told you that we don't really like visitors on the first day. We wanted you to get settled here first. I should have made sure you knew that."

Hmm. Sam had known that. Dr Burton had explained as much yesterday, after the move. But here he was apologising for not doing it, because he thought Sam didn't remember. This guy was impressing Sam more and more.

"Okay. But he's coming today, right?"

This time Burton beamed. "Right."

Sam stood up hesitantly, trying to minimise his height and take advantage of it at this same time. Ah. Now he could see a male nurse just behind the doctor, broad and tall, and distinctly aware of Sam's every move.

"Sure," Sam said, not panicking, not yet. Fifteen seconds to the (very locked) hall door, vigilant staff, large nurse on hand, observant and diligent psychiatrist, cops champing at the bit to talk to him…no, not panicking at all.

"Breakfast," said Sam. Only panicking a little bit.


End file.
